Blood: Ship of Fools
by Sir Thom
Summary: Caleb crashes a Cabal party aboard an ocean liner headed for disaster. Rated R for scenes of graphic violence and strong language.


Blood: Ship of Fools 

(WARNING: this story contains mature language and graphic scenes of extreme violence. Not suggested to be read by persons under 13 years of age) Blood: Ship of Fools 

(Note: I do not own the copyrights to the computer game BLOOD, any of its characters or any of its concepts. This is merely a work of fan-fiction, which I have written for personal enjoyment. I am not making any profit from this.)

By: Thomsirveaux99

Prologue

A man stands in line, waiting on get on a large ship. He wears a black pair of boots, blue jeans, and a white t-shirt under a black trenchcoat and a large, black coyboy-ish hat, the shadow of which usually hides his eyes. He stands holding his ticket. It's slightly battered after being in his pants pocket for so long, but it's still very readable: Titania 1931. New York to London. He had a pretty uneventful trip to the docks where the gigantic ship stood; there was a pickpocket who tried to snatch the ticket right from him. Luckily, he had no idea just how fast the man could break his arms, and so was caught off guard. He put the ticket into the upper left pocket of his trenchcoat and looked at the line in front of him, at least another hour or so until he actually got to see if they'd let him on, looking the way he looked. This wasn't exactly a public cruise. Only the rich and famous were allowed here. And you'd have to be at least upper-lower-middle class to even get into steerage. He had plenty of time to think. But thinking for too long brings back some bad memories. He'd much rather think of something other then his life for the remainder of his stay in the world's longest line. He let his mind wander, keeping an eye out in case he started thinking of the events of the last 3 years. He remembered how he had heard of another ship about the size as the one in front of him. What was it called? Titanic, or something like that. The ship's designer had looked to the Titanic for the basic design, as he had heard. Except for the safety features that is. How's that line moving? It's getting there. The man looks to either side of him to make sure no one is spying on him or anything, then lifts up his rather large suitcase and opens it carefully, visually taking inventory to make sure he has everything (despite the obvious fact that at this point it was too late to go back and get anything else anyway). 2 bandoleers full of shells, 2 double barrel shotguns (sawed off so they'll fit into the suitcase), 12 sticks of dynamite, 17 flares, (he had decided earlier that there was almost definitely flareguns around on the ship so he left that behind), 1 voodoo doll (you never know when you might need one) 1 full bottle labeled "Texas Whiskey", and a gray stone, the edges of which were rounded from the countless times he had sharpened his knife on it. He checks the pockets of his trenchcoat, he can feel his old lighter in the left, and underneath the right, sheathed in his belt, is a large cerimonial knife. He had used it before, several times to gut out zombies, but mostly (ironically) to empower his once-master through sacrifice. He had burned off all of the symbols therefore severing all ties to the cult he had once devoted his entire existence to. He closes the suitcase and looks about himself once again. How much longer now? Another few minutes. He looks back on what had brought him to the Titania. Kinda funny actually. He was casually walking down the street when he saw 2 robed figures going into an abandoned church. He snuck in behind them, pulled his double-barrels from underneath his trenchcoat and pumped them full of lead. He searched their bodies for anything useful, finding the ticket he now kept in a pocket near his heart. Heh, Classic. A voice comes from in front of him. "Excuse me sir, may I see your ticket?" He replies in his usual dry, raspy voice "Yeah, right here." He takes the ticket out of his breast pocket and hands it to the man. "What's your name there son?" "Name's Caleb." He looks it over then lets him in. "Thank you for choosing Cabal Atlantic." says the man as he begins to look over the ticket from the next person in line.

  1. Caleb walked around looking for his room. He was standing next to room #128. He looked at the ticket. Room #666. Great. He stopped to think. Was it a coincidence that the ticket was for room 666? Maybe it was a set up. He decided that he shouldn't take chances. A voice came from next to him: "AWWW FUCK!" Caleb walked up to the man who was looking into his room. "What seems to be the problem here sir?" "Out of all the cabins in this fucking ship, I get the only one infested with rats! This happens to me every time!" Caleb felt as if a light bulb had appeared over his head. "I'll take your room. You can go to mine. Here's my ticket." Caleb handed the man his ticket. "Hey, thanks!" The man handed Caleb his ticket and walked off, looking for room #666. Caleb stepped in the room and took a look at the floor. About 9 or 10 rats all over the place. He took out his knife and stabbed one on the floor. The rest must have gotten the message, as they scurried out through a hole in the wooden wall of the cabin. Caleb looked at the impaled rat on his knife. "Now what am I going to do with you?" he said to it, as if he were expecting it to say something back. He then opened a drawer in the chest and dropped the dead rat into it. "I'll toss you overboard later, before you stink up my room." Caleb shut the drawer. He then sat down on the bed. It was hard as a rock. "Oh, well. Better then the ground" He thought to himself. After sliding the suitcase under the bed, he laid back. He didn't know how long he laid there, minutes, hours, all he really knew was that once he woke up the ship was pulling out of the harbor. After pacing around the room to get use to the ship moving under him, he leaves the room and starts down the hall. A few steps away he turns around and goes right back into the room, only to emerge again to hang the "Do not disturb" sign on the doorknob.
  2. Meanwhile, in a boiler room somewhere on the ship, the crew all sits in chairs, waiting for someone. A tall man wearing all white comes up to a podium with a strange symbol on it. Even his hair is a silvery white. "Hear the word!" a man standing next to the podium says, and the crew replies: "WE HEAR THE WORD!" The man speaks loudly so everyone can hear him. "I have good news. The numbers have come in and all 22,000 passengers have arrived. This is going to be our finest hour. We have been working for 3 years to get this far and we are finally going to do it." The men cheer and wave their arms around in a singular pattern. Some sort of prayer obviously. "And I have some more news." The silver-haired man continues. "The Great Betrayer is aboard this very ship. We finally have him in our grasp. But we must be careful; he has defeated more impossible odds then this. We cannot underestimate his powers. Now, we all have jobs on this ship, we must get to them so that things can go smoothly. The resurrection of our master is finally at hand." "ALL HAIL THE DREAMING GOD!" The crowd exclaims. The man in white walks back into the darkness of the boiler rooms as the crowds disperses and returns to their jobs. 

Caleb looks at the horizon over the side of the ship, the pink and orange sunset reflecting beautifully off of the ocean surface. He never was one to appreciate sunsets, and he wasn't about to start now. He quickly puts his hand into the left-front pocket of his trenchcoat and pulls out the dead rat. Looking left and right, he drops it into the sea below. "Nighty night." He wipes his hands together over the side to get rid of any access rat fur then proceeds to wander down the deck of the ship. He passes by several young couples, kissing, enjoying the romantic scenery. He tries not to see them, but to no avail. Memories start to pop up. "Ophelia…" He shakes his head and smacks himself on the forehead. He can't think of such things right now. He's got more pertinent worries at the moment. Like the fact that he has just crashed the biggest Cabal party in 3 years and he still has no idea just why they're launching a huge ocean liner. Well, there was only one way to find out. He leans against a lifeboat and thinks for a moment. "How am I going to get a prisoner?" Just then, he hears some footsteps approaching. He jumps in the lifeboat quickly and quietly. Voices whisper as they pass the boat. "Tomorrow morning we need to get the jewel ready." "But what about the Betrayer?" "We'll take care of him tonight. He can't live to see daylight or else we're done." The whispers faded away as the men walked off. Jewel? He knew what they were talking about. The Jewel of Chronos. Caleb had used it in sacrifices to bring the life force of the victim to his ex-deity. But they weren't going to cut the hearts out of all the passengers on this ship. That would be impossible. Unless they had some sort of mass-heart cutting out machine. No, that's ridiculous. Caleb peeked out from under the tarp on top of the boat to see if the coast was clear. He saw 2 more guards armed with Tommy-guns stroll on by, and then a 3rd straggling behind them. Caleb quickly pulls his knife out and grabs the straggler by the neck, pulling him into the boat. "I'd keep quiet if I was you" warns Caleb as he puts his hand over the man's mouth. He brings the blade up to the man's throat and presses it firmly against him so he gets the point. The man lies still now. The other guards don't even notice that he's gone. "Now, let's get movin." Caleb bashes the man on the head with the handle of the knife, knocking him unconscious. He checks outside one more time to make sure that there's no one around and drags him out of the boat and to the underhalls, picking up the man's Tommygun and concealing it under his trenchcoat on the way. He passes by several people who ask him what happened. The awnser is always the same: "He had a little too much to drink." He finally makes it to room #128 and drags the prisoner in. he closes and locks the door, the "Do not disturb" sign still dangling on the doorknob. 

  3. The 2 officials finally make it to room #666 (but with only 2 armed guards). They knock on the door. "Yeah I'm comin, I'm comin. Whaddya want?" "GRAB HIM!" The guards grab him while one of the officials socks him repeatedly in the stomach. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS ABOUT?" "SHUT UP!" the official socks him one more time and they drag the man away.

Caleb pulls the top sheet off of the bed and tears it into smaller strips. He takes the smaller strips of sheet, ties the man's hands together with one, his feet with the other. He then ties the 2 strips together with a third so he can't move at all. The man starts to groan as he wakes up out of his coma, so Caleb takes a small pillow from the bed and shoves it in the man's mouth, making sure to leave his nose open so he can breathe. He then ties the pillow in place with the last strip of cloth. "Comfy?" The prisoner can only let out muffled mumblings. "Thought so. Now, are you gonna tell me you guys' plan here or what?" The prisoner mumbles something then nods no. "Are you sure you don't want to?" Again, he nods no. "Now, there's an easy way to do this and there's a hard way. You wanna do this the hard way?" He nods no again. "Good. The easy way it is. I've always preferred the easy way you know." Caleb takes out the suitcase and opens it up. He rummages through it for a while just to make his prisoner nervous. After a few moments, he finally finds what he was looking for: The voodoo doll. He holds it up and examines it for a second. A bead of sweat runs down the prisoner's forehead. Caleb then bends and twists the head of the doll, which contorts and shifts the man's head accordingly. He grunts in pain as his head moves uncontrollably around. Caleb then unsheathes his knife and carefully swipes the blade across the forehead of the doll, just so the prisoner can feel the sharpness of the blade. "Now, you're positively sure that you don't wanna tell me all your plans? This _is _your last chance you know." He fearfully nods no. If Caleb were to get him to talk, then turn him in to his superiors, his fate would be much worse then here with this psycho. Caleb then runs the blade across the forehead of the doll again, this time putting more pressure on it. This cuts right through the skin on the prisoner's forehead and blood drips down into his face. He winces in pain and shuts his eyes blood flows into his eyes. Caleb caresses the blade across the right cheek of the doll carefully so that the prisoner feels the sharpness of the blade again. The prisoner whimpers a little as Caleb does the same again, this time cutting an X into his cheek. Blood slowly drips out of the wound as Caleb moves the knife to the other cheek and does the same. "Now, things are gonna get real ugly if you don't fess up now. And I'm being very merciful by giving you another chance." The prisoner starts to tear up, and nods no again. Caleb lets out a deep sigh. "I hope you don't think I'm not enjoying this. The longer you make this last the more pleasurable it is for me." Caleb then puts the knife through the center of the doll's chest making sure to stay away from the heart so he doesn't accidentally kill the poor bastard. The man's red robe turns a darker shade of red around the center of his chest. He screams as loud as he can while gagged, but shows no sign of giving up. Caleb sighs again. "This is gonna take a while."On deck, the 2 officials and 2 guards drag the man (who is now blindfolded) from room #666 all the way down to the back room where the crew had met earlier. One of the officials says, "I'll go get Mr. Rigs. You wait right here." He then walks back into the darkness of the back rooms. A few moments later, he came back with the tall man in white. "Is this him?" asks the man. "Yup" replies the official. The tall man reaches back and smacks the official as hard as he can. "THIS IS NOT THE BETRAYOR YOU IMBECILE! WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS MAN?" he growls. The officer holds his broken jaw as he stands back up. "He was in room #666 just like you said." The tall man grabs the other man's ticket which was sticking out of his pocket. "How did you get this ticket?" asks the tall man. "I traded mine for this guy's. My room was completely rat infested and I needed a different one." "Where was your original room sir?" "Somewhere in the 100's." "Did you board the Titania alone sir?" "Yessir I did." The tall man points to the official who isn't injured. "You, take him to the altar room. We'll need 2 more people for the ceremony. And you, get more guards and search the 100's in steerage. You'll know him when you see him." The un-injured official takes the man under his arms and drags him into the darkness of the back boiler rooms while the other one goes back up topside. The tall man says something to a couple of boiler room workers and points them to the direction of the boiler rooms. They head that way while the tall man grabs a frighteningly long knife covered with odd markings. He runs his finger down the blade to make sure it's sharp then follows the other 3 men into the darkness. 

  4. Caleb looked weary. He's been torturing this guy for hours, and he hasn't budged an inch. He's cut this guy in every place imaginable, and he was afraid that if he didn't break him soon, he was going to bleed to death. Suddenly, he felt another light bulb over his head. He took the lighter out from his pocket and flicked it open. The prisoner heard this sound, and began to scream into the now blood-soaked gag in his mouth. Caleb held the lighter up to the areas with major cuts on the doll, and instantly odd blue flames appear all over the prisoner. He screams and yells in agony for a few minutes. Seems strange that he has enough energy left to make such a fuss now. Caleb waited just a few more seconds then blew the doll out. The blue flames sputtered out on the prisoner as well. Caleb checked over the prisoner's major wounds. Yup, it worked. They had been caulderized and bled no more. "More?" The prisoner screamed and yelled into his gag, nodding his head from left to right. "I take it that's a yes." Caleb puts the lighter up to the doll once more, and the prisoner breaks out into blue flames again, terrifying screams muffled by the bloody gag. Caleb once again blew the flames out on the doll. "Now you gonna spill your guts?" The prisoner nodded from up to down. "Thought so." Caleb took the knife back out and cut the gag away, which was stiffened by the amount of blood it had absorbed. Once it was away, the man started talking. "We've spent every day and night building this ship for the past 3 years. With today's technology and the Cabal's manpower, it wasn't so hard." "Yeah, that's all great, but tell me why. Why did you want an ocean liner so badly?" "Well, Mr. Rigs has a plan. We fill this ship with as many people as we can, we crash the ship into an iceberg, kill everyone on board, and use the jewel to bring their power to One True God." "Damn. What a stupid plan. I was hoping for something better! Well, how many of you are here?" "Anytime you see a crew member, it's one of us. There are others onboard who are hiding as well." "That's all I really needed to know. Thank you." Caleb grabs his knife again and shoves it through the head of the doll. The man screams out loud as a hole appears in his head and blood spurts all over the place, painting the walls red. "Holy shit! I think I'll need a new room." Caleb puts the voodoo doll back in his suitcase and closes it. He then puts the knife away, unlocks the door and leaves the room. Down the hall a ways he could hear some commotion. They had started searching all the rooms for him already. He needed a place to hide… "Oh, shit" Caleb notices a couple of guards coming at him from the other direction. "Uh-oh," he thought "what am I gonna do now?"In the back boiler room, Rigs raises the ceremonial knife over his head, exclaiming "DESCO PRETAANLUXIS!" and with that, he plunges the knife into the man's chest, cutting around his heart. Once he has the man's still beating heart in his hands, he raises a red jewel above his head and yells: "ESCO DOMUS, CRUO-STRAGARANA MALAX!" He takes the knife, and cuts the ends of his fingers, bleeding onto the jewel. He passes the jewel and the knife on to the other men who do the same. Each repeating "CRUO-STRAGARANA MALAX!" The jewel then grows bright red, glowing like a lamp. An odd, mist like substance floats up from the victim's body and is absorbed into the jewel. Rigs sets the jewel down on the table and goes over to a sink, beginning to wash his hands. "And there we have it. The first sacrifice." "May there be many more" says the officer. The 2 workers go into the darkness to get back to their assigned jobs. Just as Rigs finishes washing his hands and cleaning the knife, the dead figure on the table suddenly starts to stir, quivering like a small child. He lets out a terrifying moan and stands uneasily on his feet. "I see you've woken up. Come with me." Rigs leads the undead man towards a set of stairs. He walks down the stairs to an iron door. He then unlocks the door using a key with a symbol of a flame on it, revealing several dozen other zombies. The fresh kill unsteadily makes his way down the stairs and enters the room without a word, or even a sound coming out of his mouth. Rigs closes the door and locks it tightly. He then makes his way back up the dark stairs and places a hand on the officer's shoulder. "I love it when a plan comes together." "Yeah, I know the feeling. What're all the zombies down there for anyway?" "Well, just in case. The Betrayer is a strong one. He's overpowered more men at once then we have on this whole ship, and I feel we just need them for a cushion." "Ah. I see. But why didn't you tell us?" "I didn't want any of the men to lose their confidence." "Yeah, ya gotta have confidence." The 2 men walk into the darkness of the boiler rooms yet again, still conversing as they walk.
  5. Caleb quickly jumped against the wall and leaned into it as far as he could. He looked to the left to see that the guards on that side of him had gone into another room. He acted quickly and snuck behind them. Did they notice? One of them had seemed to have heard something rush by, and was beginning to come out of the room to check it out. Caleb looked around him quickly. There was a forked hallway just to the left of him. He moved swiftly and ducked into it, getting out of sight a fraction of a second before the guard looked his way. He began to move down the hallway, when another pair of guards rounded the corner. "Oh, shit." He heard the doorknob next to him turn, and then saw it open slightly. He swiftly turned to face the doorway and put his hand over the mouth of the person who was coming out. He pulled her back in and slammed the door shut. She bit down on his hand, hard, but Caleb could withstand it and kept his firm grip on her. "Now listen to me lady. I don't wanna kill you, I just need you to hide me for a few minutes. Now, I'm gonna take my hand away, but you better not scream or yell as long as you have any will to live past tonight, understood?" She nodded yes and he took his hand off of her. She gasped for breath and looked at him. "How am I supposed to hide you in a room this small?" "Don't worry, I'll figure something out."The door to room #128 is opened quickly to reveal a grisly scene. A man, hands and feet tied up, burned all over, sitting in an almost unrealistically large pool of his own blood, a hole right through his head, and blood splattered all over the walls of the small room. One of the guards gagged and turned away from the horrific sight. The other simply stared at it. He turned away and called out: "Hey! You better come take a look at this!" A right turn away, the next 2 guards heard this. They both stepped in the direction of the voice, and stopped abruptly. "I'll go check it out, you keep on goin through the rooms." "Okay." One of the men walked down the hall and turned left, the other kept on opening the doors and looking into the small rooms. "Holy shit! That's gotta be his handy work. He's near. We better find him, now!" "You got him?" one of the guards asks from a distance. "No, but we're close. Keep on lookin." The single guard opens the next door and peeks in. Not there. He moves on to the next. A woman is sitting on a chair in a corner of the small room, reading a book. Her sheets are draped over the side of the bed, keeping whatever is underneath it out of sight. The guard draws his Tommygun and slowly leans down and reaches for the sheets. "What are you doing?" asks the woman. "We're looking for a murderer somewhere on this floor. We know he's around here somewhere." "Well, I'm pretty sure I'd know if he was under my bed. I've been right here reading in this room all day." "Well, this guy's a sneaky one. I'll just check to make sure…" "NO! GET OUT OF MY ROOM THIS INSTANT!" "Listen lady, I have the authority to tear this whole room apart and leave you out in the hallway, and all I wanna do is look under the bed. Consider yourself lucky." The man looked at the woman and a suspicious look overcame his face. She was beginning to look very worried about what he would find under the bed. "No sir, please don't!" The man lifts the sheet and points his gun right into the darkness under the bed. He notices an object shimmering in the little light that made it's way into the void. The woman throws her head back in despair as he reaches in and pulls out the object: an open suitcase containing several dishes and towels stolen from first class. The man looked back at the woman and chuckled. "Now, how did these get here?" he said sarcastically. He closed the suitcase and picked it up, taking it out the door with him. The woman got up from her chair and stuck her head out the door, looking both ways. She then closed the door and whispered: "Just a few more minutes and he'll be around the corner." A dark figure stands up in the corner between the chair and the chest. "Sorry about your dishes." Caleb says. "No problem. I'll just steal more tomorrow." "Check to see if the coast is clear now." She opens the door again and peeks out. "All clear" she says. Caleb then picks his suitcase up from the on top of the bed and rushes out the door. He quickly makes his way to the next corner and turns left to a long stairwell. Closing the door behind him, he moves up the stairs to the top deck. Once up top, he looks over the side at the horizon. The sky is now completely black. "Where do I go now?" he thinks to himself. He looks around at the deck, which is much wider than the hallways in steerage. It is littered with lifeboats. Suddenly, a guard rounds the corner. Caleb grabs him by the shoulders and gives him a nice hard headbut. The man is dazed and very confused. He repeats that action again, and then drags the man to the edge of the deck, slamming his head into the iron railing again and again and again until he feels that man's warm blood flow over his hands. He then throws the man over the side and into the freezing Atlantic beneath. It was a long way down. Even if he was still alive after that beating, the fall had definitely killed him. He looks to the lifeboats again and starts to climb into the nearest one when he realizes: " Shit, this is probably the first place they'll look once they realize I ain't down in steerage no more. But where else is there to go?" Yet another lightbulb illuminated in his mind. He leaned over the side and looked around at the first-class decks underneath him. No one there. He drops his suitcase down onto the deck just under him and climbs carefully over the side, lowering himself down onto the second deck of the ship. He picks his suitcase back up and looks around. Lots of doors. He opens each and every one of them and takes a peek inside, searching for a suitable resting place for the night. He finds one such room: An exercise room. He quietly closes the door behind him and sets his suitcase down next to a set of barbells. He sits down next to his suitcase and leans back on the wall. "This should do, till daylight anyway." He opens the suitcase and pulls out the whiskey bottle. "I'll just have to keep awake in case they come in here lookin for me."
  6. Caleb slowly opens his eyes as he feels the warmth of the sunlight wash over his resting body. "Shit! I fell asleep!" He peers out the opaque window across from him. He can barely make out the figures of several people walking by, talking about whatever. He corks the bottle back up and places it back in the suitcase before closing it. He then painfully gets up from his place on the floor and makes his way out of the room. Upon opening the door he is suddenly assaulted by the bright light of day. He tilts his head lower so the shadow of his hat keeps the light from touching most of his face. He looks forward and sees a man holding a watch on his way past him. "Excuse me, do you have the time?" Caleb asks him. "Why yes, it's 9:26 a.m. my good man." Caleb walks away without thanking the man. He estimates about 12 hours before things start to get really messy around here. He makes his way through the crowded deck and stops near a door labeled "Men". Needing time to think, he goes into the bathroom and relieves himself. While at the toilet, he starts thinking. "The jewel. It has to be an important piece of their plan. I must find it quickly. But where do I start? Hmmm. The cargo hold. There's gotta be a clue or 2 down there." While opening the door to the restroom, he remembers to zip up and to tilt his hat to keep the sun from his pale skin. Once outside, he looks around the deck trying again to ignore the couples. He sees an emergency flaregun on the wall. "Ohhhh yeah!" He carefully snatches a pack of cigarettes out of a man's pocket as he walks by and slips it into the inside left pocket of his trenchcoat. Moving over to the gun, he drops his suitcase to the ground and leans against the wall, opening his coat over it. He takes out the cigarettes and then breaks the glass around the gun with his fist. No one notices. Putting a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he reaches into his other pocket and takes out the lighter. With his other hand, as he puts the pack into his pocket again, he carefully brings the flaregun behind him into his outer left pocket. Putting the lighter back into his other pocket, he closes his coat, picks up his suitcase, and walks away casually. He buttons the pocket and leans over the side of a railing. Underneath is the lower-class deck. "It's gotta be down there somewhere." He drops the suitcase down onto a roof underneath the deck and climbs up and over the railing, missing the roof. "Godamnit!" He says to himself as he climbs back up onto the roof. After jumping back down with the suitcase, he wanders around on the deck some more. "Now where the hell is that godamn hold anyway?" Caleb thinks to himself. He looks at all the brown doors. "It better be labeled, 'cause I ain't gonna look through all them fuckin doors just to find the cargo hold." He thinks. Finally, after a few minutes, he comes upon a large door marked "Cargo Hold 3. NO SMOKING". "Shit" thought Caleb. "How many are there on this damn ship?" He opens the door, tosses his cigarette over the side of the ship and slips in quietly. After getting down the countless flights of stairs, he emerges to the hold. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the flaregun. "Hmmm, better go for something a little more quiet." He puts the flaregun back in his pocket and reaches into his trenchcoat to unsheathe his knife. Just then, he sees several figures moving in the darkness. He ducks behind a large crate and listens carefully. "I can't believe you idiots couldn't find The Betrayer last night. Mr. Rigs is pissed! I wouldn't be surprised if he sacrifices your worthless asses when he gets hold of you." "I know, I know. We'll just guard this area in case he comes here looking for clues." "You better not fuck this up, or else he won't just have your heads, he'll have your souls too." One of them leaves the hold right through the door Caleb came in. He passes right by Caleb but doesn't notice him. The other 2 voices begin to speak again as soon as the other man has left. "You know, it's not our fault he got away. We weren't even lookin in steerage for him! We stayed right up here on this deck and kept watch. He never even came up here!" Caleb feels a grin begin to curve at the ends of his mouth. He forces it back down and concentrates on listening to the men's conversation again. "I don't really think he can stop us now anyway. Even if he did get the information from that guy, it's far too late to stop the ship from sinkin." "Yeah, right? All he can really do now is pick us off. It's not like he can get to Mr. Rigs anyway. He's always got at least 6 guys guarding him. And he's never unarmed either. We've already won here." Caleb begins to get very angry. He's angered very easily. He tries to contain his rage so that he doesn't just charge at the 2 armed men with a knife (even though it's most likely that he'd be the only one to walk away). He instead sets his suitcase down next to him and gently scratches the knife against the crate next to him. Just so that it makes a noise. "What the hell was that?" "What the hell was what?" "Didn't you hear it?" "I didn't hear nothin." "Well I'm gonna check it out. We better not screw this up or we're gonna get it for sure." Footsteps approach. Caleb quietly unsheathes the knife and waits. The footsteps draw nearer. His pulse quickens. This is it. It's been so long since he got into a good fight. His little tussle last night on the top deck definitely didn't count: The guard never stood a chance. But these guys, not only do they have to kill him to save their lives, but they can't even let him get away, to save their souls. "This promises to be fun…"The Captain makes his way through the crowd. "Humph" he thinks. "Their all like cows going into a slaughter house. They have no clue what's going to happen to them, and go about their lives as if they'll live forever." He chuckles out loud. Finally, he gets to his destination: The steering room He takes a map off of the wall near a steering wheel and brings it up closer to his face. He runs his finger along the map, plotting the ship's path through the ocean so far. He then stops and marks a point with a pen. He picks up a telegraph and starts to click it. Once he's finished, he looks over the map again and awaits the response. A clicking is heard coming from the machine. He quickly picks up a pen and paper and writes down letters as they are clicked by the machine. The message finally comes into form. "There is a large iceberg approximately 50 miles NW of your current position. Repeat. There is a large iceberg approximately 50 miles NW of your current position. End." The captain smiles devilishly as he pulls back a lever to slow the ship down. Just then, Rigs steps into the cockpit from the back way. "Are there any icebergs near us Mr. Smith?" "We got a big one about 50 miles away, sir." He replies as he hands the piece of paper to Rigs, who then looks over the paper. "You weren't worried sir, were you? I told you that it's perfect season for 'bergs." "It seems you were right Mr. Smith. I had my doubts but you pulled through. How long until we hit it?" "I'm correcting our speed and re-plotting our course, and once I'm finished we will have about 5 hours left" says the captain as he pulls more levers and turns the steering wheel. "Good, good. Things are beginning to look bright for us. This will indeed be the Cabal's finest hour." Rigs then steps back into the darkness, laughing evilly.
  7. Caleb's pulse quickens as the adrenaline rush comes over him. He starts to breathe harder when, suddenly, the man walks around the corner and behind the crate with Caleb. Big mistake. Caleb grabs his head and covers his mouth as he shoves the knife through his heart, all the way to the hilt. The end of the blade sticks up through his back. The man groans as he bleeds tremendously, and Caleb twists the blade to make the hole in his chest larger. The man groans in pain again, this time weakly. Caleb twists one more time and this time the man stops breathing altogether. Caleb drops the man at his feet then wipes the knife clean of his evil blood using the dead man's shirt. Caleb then peeks around the corner. The other guard didn't notice the commotion. He then moves around to the other side of the crate, picking up the body, and tosses it down right in plain sight. "What the fuck?!" exclaims the guard. He then unsheathes _his_ knife and looks around him. He sees a figure moving in the darkness next to him, but once he turns toward it, it's gone. A small noise is heard from the other side, and he turns to it. Nothing there. Suddenly, Caleb comes out of the darkness behind him and wraps his arm around his neck. The man is ready for this however, and elbows him to the ribs not once, but twice. Sharp pains accompany these blows and Caleb doubles over. The man then raises his knife over his head and tries to drive it down into Caleb's chest, but Caleb narrowly dodges this by rolling to his side. The blade still nicks his shoulder. Caleb then bashes the man on the side of his head with the handle of his knife as hard as he can, but because he's on the ground this isn't as hard as it usually would be. The man falls over but gets back up quickly, blood dripping from the small gash in his head. Caleb then gets up and rushes at the man, who grabs him by the shoulders and reverses his move, knocking him headfirst into a large crate. Caleb falls to his knees and groans as his vision becomes more and more blurred. His head is pounding. He sees about 6 men rush at him with knives again, and he throws himself to the side, sliding across the metal floor of the hold until he slams his back into something. His vision starts to come back and he realizes that his head aches much more then he thought. Not only that, but his hat fell off! He stumbles to his feet, still a little dizzy, and picks his hat up from the ground. The other man pulls his knife out of the crate it was stuck in and charges at Caleb once again. This time Caleb is ready and grabs him by the head. He then plunges his fist into the man's gut repeatedly, then puts all his weight down on the man's head, slamming his face to the floor. This knocks him into unconsciousness, and Caleb then picks up the man's knife and drives it into his back and through his heart. The man shivers a little at this but then just stops moving. Caleb leaves the knife in him then goes over to the wall he was slammed into and picks up his hat. "Well, that _was_ fun" he says to himself, sheathing his knife again. His head stops pounding and the pain goes down to a dull roar. He walks over to the first body and drags it over next to the second body. "Now, where do I put these?" He sees some large objects covered with tarps and goes over to them, lifting the tarps and looking underneath. He finally finds something useful: An old model T Ford. He picks the lock on the door open with the knife and drags the bodies into it. He then closes the door and puts the tarp over the car again. He notices the pools of blood on the floor, and shatters all the light bulbs so that they won't notice them right away, if they come back. "Now, he said the jewel's not here, so where the fuck do I look for it?" he says to himself. He looks around at the walls. It's now very, very dark in the hold, so he takes out his lighter and flicks it on. The orange glow from the lighter is just enough to see the door in the wall a few feet away marked: "Cargo Hold 2. NO SMOKING" He presses his ear against the door and listens carefully. Can't hear anyone. He slowly and carefully opens the door. He can see a single guard standing, his back turned to the door. Caleb holds his knife up and sneaks up behind the man, putting the knife to his throat. "How many of you are there in this hold?" "Just me! Just me!" "Alright then. You gonna tell me where the jewel is or am I gonna hafta torture you too?" The man whimpers a little and replies: "No." "Oh, well. At least I know a way to get ya to talk quick."A little while later, Caleb stands in front of an open door leading outside the ship. The sunshine is flowing into the room, making it look even darker behind him. His suitcase is sitting open next to him, the voodoo doll and whiskey bottle missing. He has the bottle in his hand while the doll is propped up on a crate next to him. In his other hand he holds a rope which is looped through a pulley. The end of the rope is hanging out the door. He pulls on the rope and up comes the guard, hanging by his feet. "Don't ya just love Chinese Water torture? You ready to talk yet or what?" The guard lets out a muffled wail from behind his gag and nods no. Caleb sets the bottle next to the doll and takes out his knife. He swipes the doll with the knife on the chest, and the man screams as blood starts to flow from his chest down into his face. "What a mess! Better clean you up!" The man screams again and nods no but, alas; Caleb drops him into the water again anyway. He sets the knife down and picks the bottle back up. Taking a big swig, he belches and sets it back down in its place. After a few more minutes, he raises the man back up. "Now, you gonna spill yer guts or am I gonna drop you down there a 9th time like this?" The man nods no and starts to undo his gag. Caleb then lunges forward with his knife and cuts the gag off of him. "Mr. Rigs has the jewel." "And where is Mr. Rigs?" "I don't know." "What a waste of my time, I'm just gonna drop you again and see if that'll refresh your memory." "NO! NO! He moves all around the ship. I don't where exactly he goes but he does spend a lot of time in the farthest back room in the lowest quarters." "How do I get there?" "You'll have to go through the huge engine rooms to get to the boiler rooms. And even then the boilers are like a maze. You might never find him down there." "We'll see about that." Caleb then lets go of the rope and the man falls into the water. He shuts the door, takes another big swig of whiskey and packs up all his stuff.
  8. Rigs takes a sip of his wine. He is in the back room, surrounded by about 7 robed guards with Tommyguns. In front of him stands the captain. He holds up his glass and winds it around a little, stirring the liquid inside. He seems nonchalant, but it's just a façade. He is very upset at the whole Betrayer business. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to get him on the ship. No, he can't let himself succumb to self-doubt. The betrayer cannot win this. He MUST not. He turns around in his chair and opens a safe behind him. In it, glowing like a star, is the Jewel of Chronos. He holds it in his hand. "Men, this is what The Betrayer is after. He definitely knows about it by now. This is the key to our plan, and it must be protected at all costs. Mr. Smith, how long now?" "About 3 more hours." "Let me know when we're down to an hour and a half. That's when we start getting ready." "Yes sir." The captain walks out, into the darkness. "Now, I'm sure The Betrayer will come here looking for me, which is why I must find a new sanctuary. I want 2 of you to accompany me to a new hiding place, and the rest of you all take posts in the boiler rooms. Don't let the zombies loose until either the ship starts sinking, or things are looking in his favor. _If _that happens." He stands up, puts the jewel in his pocket and walks into the darkness between 2 guards, laughing evilly (again).

Caleb exits the dark cargo hold and emerges back onto the lower deck. It's no longer quite as bright. He looks up at the sky. Dark clouds are forming. "Looks like a big storm comin" says a man next to him, who is also looking up at the clouds. "It's a whole lot bigger then you think" replies Caleb as he walks away. He looks at the brown doors again. The engine room has got to be around here somewhere. Checking every door, he begins to get angry again. Finally, after much longer then he was willing to spend on this, he finds it. He leans against the door and listens inside. Doesn't seem to be anyone around. He carefully opens the door and peeks inside. Nope. He slips in and closes the door behind him. After moving around a few minutes, he sees the gigantic turbines, which propel the ship. He hears the voices of the engine workers overhead. They won't see him. They're too busy. Caleb sees a robed guard armed with a Tommygun. "Alright, time for some action" he thinks to himself. Pulling out his knife, he sneaks around the man (which is not too difficult given the amount of noise in the engine room) and covers his eyes from behind. "Guess who!" "Uhhhh, James?" "Nope." "Melissa?" "HELL NO!" "Mike?" "Wrong awnser!" Caleb then slits his throat. "Moron" Caleb says to himself as he dumps the body into one of the gigantic turbines. He takes the ammo drum out of the guy's Tommygun and puts it in his suitcase. Looking around, he finds a door marked "boilers". Caleb opens it slowly, revealing darkness. It's totally pitch black in there. He goes in and closes the door behind him. "Can't see a god damn thing!" He flicks open his lighter, which fills most of the room with a dull orange glow. The noise form the engine rooms still humming in his ears, he makes his way through the darkness, unaware of the dangers lying in wait beyond every corner of this area…2 guards heard Caleb come into the boiler room, and hid around each side of a corner, arms drawn. They tensely wait for him to come into view. The glow from his lighter comes through the doorway. The guard on the left motions for the other one to duck down. They do so, just as Caleb walks in. He doesn't notice them. One of them starts to go after him, but is held back by the other's hand. Caleb walks over to the far wall and searches for some kind of light switch. The 2 guards watch him carefully as he feels across the wall, holding the lighter to it at the same time. He finally finds it and clicks it on, flicking the lighter closed at the same time. The 2 guards jump up from their places on the floor and yell "CRUDUX CRUO!" surprising Caleb. They aim and fire at him, but Caleb rolls away and ducks around another corner and into another dark room, dropping his suitcase. He touches his shoulder and feels something wet, but soon realizes that it's only the knife wound from earlier. Caleb then pulls his Tommygun from its place in the back of his trenchcoat and holds it up with his good arm. Leaning over slightly to peek around the corner, he points the nozzle quickly through the doorway in the direction of the guards and squeezes the trigger. Once he hears one of them scream he quickly runs across the doorway to the other side, observing which one of them he hit. He then leans against the wall and waits for a few more seconds, until the noise level goes down. Once the injured guard stops moaning, Caleb crosses again. This time he aims directly at the injured guard and doesn't stop shooting him until he falls to the ground. Caleb then ducks back around the corner and leans against the wall again. He rubs his shoulder and waits, waits to hear footsteps approach from the other side. The last guard starts to move over, to get a better look at the area, when he suddenly finds the butt of Caleb's Tommygun smashing into his face. He nearly falls over in pain. He looks up again to see the nozzle of the gun pointed right in his eye. Caleb squeezes the trigger. Bullets tear through the guard's skull, splattering its contents across the wall behind him. Caleb blows the smoke away from the barrel and a wicked grin comes across his face. It stays for a few seconds until he forces it back down to a scowl. He goes into the dark room he had just used for cover and finds a light in there. 2 out of the 3 walls have closed doors in them. He goes over to the door on the left and tries to pull it open. "Dahh, it's stuck" He says to himself. In spite of this he grabs the handle and pulls on it again. It gives way partly. Caleb shuts his eyes and gives the door one more mighty pull. He hears it open and opens his eyes. It's still closed, and he's holding a broken doorknob in his hand. "What the… oh SHIT!" He rolls to one side just as the bullets smash into the door he was trying to open (right where his head would have been). The bullets then begin to follow him as he quickly crawls across the floor searching for cover. The bullets stop. "EXIMATA!" yells a voice from behind Caleb. Finally, he turns over a desk and kneels behind it. "You ran out of ammo, didn't you?" asks Caleb. The voice replies: "VOROX EXIMATA, PALLEX!" and a stick of dynamite lands right next to Caleb's feet. He quickly tosses it right back and ducks his head down. A loud explosion accompanies the guard's scream. Caleb pokes his head up from behind the desk and takes a look around. The walls are splattered with blood and chunks of flesh, and right in front of the desk lays most of a fresh corpse. "Pathetic insects." Caleb moves over to the room that the guard came from and shoves the guard's remains into the darkness. Nothing happens. He then slowly pokes his head into the door and looks around. The light from the room behind him provides enough to see in the small room. Nothing in there but a half-empty bookcase and some more ammo drums. Caleb picks up a few of the drums and takes them back to his suitcase in the other room. He goes back to the small room and uses one more drum to reload his Tommygun. Moving back to the other door, he drops the gun, wedges his knife into the little crack he had managed to get open and pulls with all his might. The door suddenly swings open and Caleb lands on his back. Jumping back to his feet, he points his Tommygun into the darkness and stands in his place. He waits a few minutes, listening for any sign of another ambush. He flicks his lighter open again and takes a look at this room. It's larger then the others, has a narrow metal staircase going down just off the center of the room, and a desk with a wine bottle on it. He hurries over to the desk and picks up the bottle. "Damnit, empty." He throws it to the ground and it shatters loudly. Caleb then pulls his Tommygun and points it back into the darkness, in case anyone heard the bottle. But then again, they would have heard his multiple murders and gone after him already. No, there probably isn't anyone there. Caleb then notices a shiny piece of metal on the wall, just out of the reach of his lighter. Moving closer to the wall, he realizes that it's a dial-for a combination safe. "Finally, some luck." He holds the lighter close to it and takes a look. "Hmmm, I can get this one." Caleb puts down his gun and sets his ear to the safe, right next to the dial. He begins to slowly turn the dial, listening for that click. He stands there for a long time, twisting the dial and listening carefully until he finally gets in. Opening the safe, he sees a small brown cloth bag. The object inside is glowing. Could it be? Did he finally find the jewel? Suddenly, the lights come on above him. He looks up towards the doorway to see some of the engine workers standing, staring at him threateningly. "Aww, shit."

  9. Caleb stands, staring down the 6 engine workers. He had set his gun on the floor, so he didn't have much chance to pick it up. He instead unsheathes his knife. He glances at the knife then at the weapons that everyone else is holding. This will be a challenge. He moves forward a step and then is charged at by 2 of the angry men. He firmly stands his ground as the 2 rather large men run at him. The first one rams into his gut at full speed, sliding his feet back across the floor a little, but otherwise not doing much damage. Caleb replies with a blade through the back of his neck. The man falls off of the blade and Caleb looks up to the other man, only to find a fist bashing his nose in. He fells blood drip down into his mouth as he starts to slash at the man in front of him, getting him but not very good. The man rushes him again but Caleb is ready this time. A quick knee to the groin settles the score and then Caleb's knife pierces the man's heart from behind while he bends over in pain. Caleb looks up to see 3 more guards coming at him. He runs at them and holds the knife out, which manages to slit one's throat. He falls to his knees, breathless, gagging on his own blood. But Caleb doesn't get to enjoy the moment, for the other 2 men certainly have something to say about all this. One grabs him from behind while the other nails him right in the ribs. Hard. After a while, Caleb's ribs fell broken. The one bashing him stops and picks up a baseball bat (which he had presumably brought on board just for this occasion). He reaches it back as far as he can, and takes a mighty swing for Caleb's head. Caleb escapes the man holding him just in time to avoid getting seriously injured. Can't say the same for them guy who was holding him though. The man doubles over in pain just as the one with the baseball bat realizes what happened. He looks up at Caleb, who in turn smashes a chair right across his face. He falls over as well, and for the moment, Caleb seems to be in control of the situation. Just then, he realizes that there is one more worker waiting for his piece. Caleb slowly turns his head toward the doorway to see something that seemed more a giant bone-breaking machine then a man. 7 ½, maybe 8 feet tall, this guy had more muscles then what seemed possible. "Why the hell did they put you in the engine room anyway? You could pull the goddamn boat yourself!" He walks up to Caleb, shaking probably the entire ship with each thundering step, and grabs him by the neck. The big guy holds Caleb up to his face as if he were a little kitten (the size difference was about right) and throws him back down. Caleb fells as if he were run over by a freight train several times. He painfully tries to get up but is slammed in the back and falls down onto his face. Caleb rolls onto his back, avoiding another slam attack from the big guy, and finally manages to get to his feet. He sees his knife, still on the floor where he dropped it. He waits for the big guy to come after him again, then rolls out of the way of yet another slam attack, grabbing the knife and throwing it at him. The big guy groans in pain as the knife quickly lodges itself into his side, just below his ribcage. He pulls it out of himself and throws it to the ground angrily. Charging at Caleb again, he misses a huge punch and instead of in Caleb's head, puts a huge dent in the wall. Caleb quickly jabs the big guy's open wound, forcing it to gush blood. The man is incredibly angered by this, and backhands at Caleb. This connects, sending Caleb flying across the floor. His vision becomes blurred again, this time much, much worse. "That's gotta be a concussion now" he thinks to himself, his thoughts even clouded and hard to understand. He can just barely make out a large figure approaching him; the main feature he can discern from the rest is a streak of red down his side. The figure kneels over him, and Caleb reaches toward the top of the red streak. He slams his fist into the wound as hard as he can and the man falls over. Caleb's eyesight then begins to focus and it becomes easier to think again. He then runs over to his knife and picks it back up. The big guy grabs Caleb by the throat again and squeezes. Unable to breathe, Caleb lifts the knife and stabs it into the big guy's neck. The man screams as blood sprays all over from out of his jugular vein. He falls to the floor in a large, warm puddle of red. "I'm gonna let you bleed to death shit head. Nobody, but nobody tries to strangle me!" taunts Caleb, leaning over face to face with his victim. He then walks back over to the safe after pulling his knife out of the large, muscular corpse. He steps over the bodies of the other workers, 2 of which were still breathing. Caleb turns one of them over and shoves the knife into his heart, blood pouring out of it. He then simply cuts the other one's throat, leaving him to die. Looking into the safe at the glowing bag, he takes it out and opens it. "Mother fucker!" he exclaims. Inside the bag is a tiny lantern, an insignificant flame dimly burning inside. "THIS HAS GOT TO BE SOME KIND OF FUCKING JOKE!" His rage beginning to become uncontrollable, he throws it to the ground and it shatters. Walking back to the second boiler room, he picks up his Tommygun, puts it back in his trenchcoat, grabs his suitcase, sits on the floor, opens the suitcase and takes out the whiskey bottle. He's in a lot of pain right now, and this will definitely do him some good.
  10. The captain walks into a small wooden room and kneels in front of a large throne. Sitting atop the throne is Rigs, sipping his wine. "How much longer now, Mr. Smith?" "Right now we got about an hour and a half until we hit." "Good. I want everyone to get ready. We need to get the boats out in 45 minutes. Mr. Smith, can you speed us up a little?" "The best time we could make at this point and still have a 100% chance of hitting the target would be an hour." "That's perfect. Make it so Mr. Smith." Smith then leaves the room and heads for the cockpit, leaving Rigs and his guards behind. "It's almost time, Betrayer. It's almost time," he says to himself, sipping his red wine. He takes the jewel out of his pocket. It still glows after all this time. He looks deep into it, deep into the soul of The One That Binds. He sees torture. He sees torment. He sees agony and eternal servitude. And soon, very soon, Rigs himself will be in control of all that power. Perhaps he's lucky that Caleb betrayed the Cabal. If he hadn't, all the power would have been his. All he needed was faith. All he needed was to be able to blindly follow The Dreaming God and all that was promised to him would have happened. Too bad for Caleb, how lucky for Rigs. Or so it would seem. These thoughts never entered the mind of Rigs, but Caleb was a different story entirely: why would it require that much faith? Why would you have to die and be resurrected, still holding faith in all the gifts that He and his minions have promised? To the fanatical followers of Tchernobog, this made perfect sense. But not to Caleb, who really didn't care about all of that so much in the first place. All he really needed was a place to belong, and something to believe in. All that other shit was just icing on the cake. Rigs' thoughts drift a bit, to the day before The Chosen had gone into that shrine, never to walk back out on their own 2 feet. "Are they rea-dy Rigs?" "They are, master. All is ready for you to have their souls." "Good. Their life force will be all I need to return to the Earth and re-clam my king-dom." "Yes, the day is finally at hand master." No one is certain even now what kept Caleb's soul away from The Dark One, and how it re-joined with his body. But it happened, and the Cabal paid dearly for it. Rigs sips his wine again. "Finally," he says to himself, "the day has come again. And this time we _will _succeed."Caleb raises the bottle over his head and pours the last few drops of liquor into his mouth. Belching loudly, he tosses the now empty bottle to the floor and it shatters into a million shards of broken glass. The smell in the back rooms has become unbearable, so Caleb decides to get the hell out of there. He stands up slowly, and strangely feels all right. The whiskey had taken the major pain away, while the rest wasn't more then he could handle. He closes the suitcase and picks it up. Going into the engine room, Caleb hears an odd noise. As if something large were scraping across the wall… "Oh, no fuckin' way!" The iron walls of the ship groan and smash open, ice falling through the brand new gash in the side. Water begins to pour in through the large hole at an alarming rate. By the time he realizes just how high the water has become, it is already up to his knees. An alarm begins to ring right into Caleb's ear. "SHIT! THE FLOOD DOORS!" He quickly runs to get out but is too late, a thick iron door has closed in front of the exit. Caleb then looks around the quickly flooding space. Holding his suitcase above his head, he wades through the water over to a ladder and climbs up to the catwalks around the turbines. He sits down and tries to think of a plan.Back in the boiler rooms, the back room is quiet as it fills with water. Suddenly, the silence is broken by a loud explosion, which blows off a good section of the roof. A robed guard comes in on a rope and with a diving suit on. He goes underneath the now overhead water and takes a key out of his pocket. It has a little symbol of a flame on it. He inserts it into the keyhole in the iron door, and it opens. Out emerge dozens of zombies, all trying to get some fresh brains to feed on. Some armed with axes, others with meat cleavers, they all overtake the man and cut him to bits, feasting on his gray matter.Caleb hears the explosion and goes to the boiler rooms to investigate; now having to swim his way there. By the time he gets to the back room, he can no longer keep his head above water. He sees the dead man's diving suit and puts it on. "Just what the hell happened to this guy anyway?" he asks himself. He quickly realizes the awnser to his question: zombies. The zombies start hacking at him with their bladed weapons, cutting him good a couple of times, but Caleb gets the hell out of there, and quick. He climbs back up the ladder to the catwalk. He opens his suitcase and pulls out his pair of sawed off double barrels. That old familiar feeling flows over him. He then pulls out his bandoleers and straps them across his chest in an "X" underneath his trenchcoat. Snapping open the barrel, he pulls a pair of shells from the bandoleer and slides them in. After doing the same with the other shotgun, he puts the diving suit back on, straps the suitcase to the suit and leaps back into the water, adrenaline surging throughout his body. Swimming to the back room, he immediately gets flanked by 4 zombies. He puts the end of the barrel of one his shotguns and fires a slug right through one's head. He turns and quickly does the same to one on the other side of him with the other shotgun. Avoiding the other zombies, he swims into the room, which is crowded with the undead. They all move toward him and begin to attack him with their weapons. He kicks them away and swims towards the rising surface. Emerging from the water, he hears several voices: "CRUONITA SHATRUEX!" "HATANOCEO SHAANTITUS MALAX!" "CRUO-STRAGARANA PALLEX!" Caleb then hears bullets landing next to his head and dives back under. The zombies charge at him again once he's under the surface. Caleb blows a couple of slugs through one, knocking it back. He snaps the barrel open and the shells pop right out. He then replaces the empty shells with some nice new slugs and does the same to the other shotgun. He goes back up to the surface and blasts out of both barrels at the closest cultist. The man screams as he falls on his back, blood pouring out of the fresh hole in his midsection. Caleb dives back under just as the hail of Tommygun bullets makes it his way. He sets the shotgun from his left hand on the floor underwater and unsheathes his knife. As the zombies come after him again, he forces it through the skull of the first zombie to come near him. This finishes it off. Many more are approaching and he holds them back with his foot. "I don't know how much longer I can do this" he thinks to himself as he stabs through the skull of another zombie. He manages to put enough distance in between himself and the zombies to re-load the empty shotgun, pick up the other one and re-load that one too. Then, floating back to the surface, he quickly aims at the closest head, and again unloads both barrels at his target. Gore splatters all over the wall as Caleb aims for the next cultist with the other gun and unloads both barrels a third time. His head is flung back and he falls, a pool of blood forming under him. Ducking under the fire of the last guard, he sets the left gun back down and pulls the knife again. He swings it as hard as he can, decapitating a zombie. Holding the rest back again, he re-loads the shotgun, picks up the other one and re-loads that one as well. Resurfacing, he points in the general direction of the last armed guard and fires away with one barrel. The man yells as the slug tears through his shoulder. Caleb takes better aim this time, and blows a hole right through the man's neck. He falls forward, gasping for air. Caleb snaps open the shotgun to re-load when he hears splashing behind him. He looks over his shoulder to see the zombies climbing out of the water. They get close enough to him to start swinging away with their cleavers and axes, just as he puts 2 fresh slugs in the gun. He swings the gun around and bashes the closest zombie in the head with it, knocking the head off. The other zombies don't even seem to notice, and keep on hacking at Caleb. He gets cut up pretty good but rolls to the side, lays the shotguns on the floor, and pulls the flaregun out from his pocket. "Now that's more like it" he says to himself. He fires a flare, which upon leaving the gun becomes a huge ball of flames which explodes on a zombie and then expands, engulfing many of the other ones. They burst into flames while still heading after Caleb. He takes a few steps back as they explode, the flesh scorched off of their bones. The smell of burning flesh permeates the air, making Caleb want to gag. He loads another flare into the gun and fires it. This one misses the target, but explodes on the wall, setting fire to several zombies again. They run around in flames for a while and eventually fall to the ground. The few remaining zombies attack Caleb again, their scorched flesh smoking and making the air around them stench. He pockets the flaregun, unsheathes his knife and charges them head-on. Swinging the knife around wildly, he decapitates one zombie, slices the head of another in two, and lodges the knife into the side of a third head. He puts his foot on the last zombie's chest and pulls the knife out. Now there are 3 more left and Caleb goes after the first one without hesitation. Caleb rams the knife into it's eyeball all the way to the handle, the blade sticking out of the back of it's head. He twists the head off and slams what little of the blade that is hanging out of the zombie's skull into the next's temple. This isn't quite enough to destroy it, so Caleb kicks it over and presses his foot against its head as hard as he can until he fells it collapse under the pressure. One more to go. Caleb pulls the head off of his knife and quickly jumps back to avoid the axe of the last zombie. He stabs downward into its chest, gashing it open. It's barely effected by this and swipes at him with the axe once again. The axe cuts across Caleb's already injured shoulder and he yells in pain. "NOW I'M PISSED!" he screams. He swings the knife at the zombie wildly, cutting it all over. Once it is incapacitated and falls over, he begins to hack it to pieces. After several minutes, the remains of the zombie somewhat resemble ground beef. Noticing this, Caleb hacks away at it one more time and sheathes his knife back up. "Fuckin zombies" he says to himself. He walks back to the water, now pinkish from all the blood diluted in it, and picks up his shotguns. He snaps open the barrel of the empty one and puts some new slugs in it just as he notices 2 more cultists coming in. He shuts the barrel and unloads it at the first one, killing him. Swinging his weight around, he ducks around a corner just as a hail of buckshot blows tons of little holes in the wall near him. He hears the cultist snap open his barrel when he spins around and blasts one barrel at him. This gets him in the chest and he falls back against the wall behind him Caleb fires the other barrel into his heart and he falls forward, bleeding like a faucet for a second but stopping. Caleb re-loads his guns and takes off the diving helmet (he was wearing it the whole time). Opening the suitcase, he takes a look at the dynamite. Completely soaked. "Oh well, I can always grab some more off of them." He puts the voodoo doll in the pocket opposite the flaregun, puts the Tommygun drum in a pouch inside the back of his trenchcoat and throws the suitcase aside. Searching the bodies lying around, he finds 5 sticks of dynamite and slips them into special loops on his belt. He then stands up and holds his shotguns about eye-level. "They'll wish they never met me…" 
  11. Rigs watches over the hundreds of men loading onto a pair of large wooden boats somewhere in the lower areas of the ship. A man comes up behind him and taps his shoulder. "Sir, there's been a little problem with the Betrayer." "Shit. Where's Smith?" "He's over there sir." Rigs walks up to the captain and taps on his shoulder. "I need you to have your 2nd in command lead more troops while we get off the ship. Find him and tell him." "Yessir, I will." "We can't let The Betrayer interfere anymore. He must be eliminated quickly or else we're finished." "I understand sir. WILLIAMS! GET OVER HERE! I HAVE AN ASSINGMENT FOR YA!" Rigs walks back to his place and watches as Smith and Williams round up some of the men and head back up to the deck. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the jewel. Staring into it, an evil smile makes its way across his face and he laughs evilly.Caleb looks at the hole in the floor that he had emerged from. The water was now rising more quickly then ever and was almost up to his ankles. He goes over to the door and quickly makes his way up the stairs. Once he emerges to the deck, it's almost as if he has entered a whole new world. Everyone is running around in panic, screaming their heads off in a vain attempt to get help. They shove each other around, trample over small children, and swamp the already overpopulated lifeboats being lowered by the passengers themselves. This is definitely not a good idea, for they don't know how to go about it. Many of the boats get flipped over or end up hanging by one rope, in either case spilling their human cargo into the cold ocean where they face certain death. Very few boats make it to the water intact, and those that do mysteriously explode into flames. "Must be some suicidal cultists on the boats. They're not gonna let anyone escape from this ship alive." Caleb thinks to himself. He makes his way through the chaos and tries to think of a plan. "How are they going to get off of this ship? There aren't enough lifeboats to get all of the Cabal members off of this ship, let alone the passengers. They must have another ship somewhere in the lower holds…" just as he reaches a conclusion, it begins to rain on him. He looks up to the darkened sky, and suddenly finds dozens of cultists leaning over the railing of the deck above him, aiming their weapons at his head. He curses out loud and rolls underneath them, the bullets ramming into the ground, several of them grazing his ankle. He raises his shotguns above his head and points them up. Moving to the side, he rounds a corner carefully and looks to the left. There's more cultists waiting there for him. He fires each of the barrels at them and most of them fall. Caleb rolls under the bullets of the few left and bashes one of them in the stomach with the sawed-off butt of his gun. Rolling toward the last couple of cultists, he gets up and rounds the next corner, dropping the shotguns and taking out the Tommygun. He opens fire into the chest of the closest cultist and he falls over dead. The next one jumps out at him and gets a few bullets through the brain. Pointing the gun up, he sees a few heads poking over the railing above him and he fires at them. One of them falls down in front of him just as the others duck back. He had a Tommygun as well, so Caleb picks it up and holds one in each hand. "A little unfair here, the odds are against you. I suggest you give up." Caleb shouts at the men. He hears them laugh and a familiar voice speaks up: "We'll see betrayer. We'll see." Caleb instantly recognizes the voice as one of the men he heard last night, while hiding in the boat. "Your one of the big guys around here, ain't ya?" asks Caleb. "I suppose you could say that, yes. But you will soon be one of the dead guys around here Betrayer." Williams replies. Caleb mimics Williams: "One of the dead guys around here." "You've got a big mouth, Betrayer." Caleb talks loudly to cover up the sound of his lighter flicking: "So, how long have you been a seaman?" "Almost my whole life." "Never was much of a sailor myself. I always preferred dry land." Caleb lights the stick of dynamite and tosses it up onto the platform with the cultists. "FUCK! GET BACK!" yells Williams, just as a loud explosion sends the cultists flying around. Caleb runs around to the other side of the platform and pumps some of the survivors full of hot lead as they try and climb down from the platform. Laughing wickedly, Caleb sees a cultist setting something on the side of the ship. After blasting him to kingdom come, he looks over the side and sees what was being set there: a row of remote detonators. "Aww, shit!" Caleb runs as fast as he can in the other direction, but they explode before he can get too far away. The explosion sends him flying through the air. He drops his guns in the air and sails over the railing, landing on one of the lower decks. One Tommygun lands next to him while the other lands just behind him. He slowly gets up and picks up the guns, pointing them up at the higher deck he just fell from. Suddenly, he realizes that the ship seems a little lopsided. "They're makin the ship sink faster!" he says to himself. He carefully climbs back up to the higher deck and picks up his shotguns. Putting them where he usually kept the Tommygun, he climbs back up to the higher platform and wraps his arm around the railing for support. The ship is sinking very, very fast and he can barely stand up on this side of the ship anymore. He looks around. Pools of blood are flowing into one large pond, which falls over the edge of the platform like a crimson waterfall. Bodies are all around, many of which mutilated beyond identification. But there's no sign of the man in uniform… "Betrayer!" Caleb looks behind him to see the one he was looking for, holding a napalm launcher. "Holy shit!" Caleb says as he jumps off of the platform. Another explosion goes off behind him, this time it doesn't affect him though. He's too far away from it. He takes his lighter back out and pulls a stick of dynamite from his belt. He lights it and looks around the corner. Williams is climbing over the railing. Caleb rounds the corner and drops the dynamite in front of Williams. He screams then falls back to the lower deck, leaving the napalm launcher up there. It goes flying off of the ship once the explosion tears the metal floor apart. Caleb slips in a pool of flowing blood and almost falls over the side. Catching himself on the railing, he looks down at the lower decks and is surprised to see almost nothing but water. The ship is going down, and it's going down fast. He also notices a huge smokestack swaying like a piece of paper in front of a fan. Resting against the railing, he starts to think of a plan to get off the ship. "Now, they've gotta have some other ship around here somewhere, and they may or may not have gotten off already. If they did, then they couldn't have gotten far. And if not, then I may be able to hitch a ride on the ship. All I need to keep Tchernobog from coming back to this world is that jewel. As long as they don't have it, they may never be able to bring him back ever again. That Rigs guy must have it. Just what the fuck does he look like anyway?" Just then, Caleb feels something smash into his skull and he falls over the railing and onto the deck below, which is covered in knee-high water. He gets up and sees Williams leap down from the upper deck and land on his feet right next to him. Caleb unsheathes his knife and attacks the man, only to be bashed in the gut by his target. He falls to his knees, dropping the knife into the water. The man then kicks Caleb in the face and he falls to his back. "AND NOW, I WILL DO WHAT NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN ABLE TO DO BEFORE: KILL THE GREAT BETRAYER!" Williams yells as he holds Caleb underwater. Caleb's hat floats along next to them as Caleb reaches and feels around underwater for his knife. His breath runs out fast, and Caleb begins to inhale water. Just then, he feels the razor-shard blade of his knife between his fingers. He carefully runs his fingers along the blade, eventually making it to the handle. He grasps the handle and raises it out of the water. Not knowing where exactly his hand is, he stabs the knife downward, sticking it into something. Williams yells but still holds Caleb down, now laughing maniacally, the blade sticking out of his back. Caleb's lungs are now filled with water, and he barely holds on to consciousness. His grip on the handle of the knife loosens and soon his hand completely slips off. Above the surface, Williams' laughing is quieted by am eerie metallic noise. Still holding Caleb down, he looks to the side, where the metal cables holding the smokestack up are swinging around wildly. His jaw suddenly drops as he realizes what going to happen next. He starts to scream but is soon cut off by a whipping noise. His head snaps to the side and his entire body falls over dead. Caleb quickly gets up and starts to cough all the water out of his lungs. Once they are empty, he breaths hard to make up for the last few minutes underwater. He looks over to Williams' body, which is floating in a red area of the water. He turns the body over to discover that about 1/4th of his skull has been collapsed, exposing his brain, and his eye was floating nearby. "That's gonna hurt in the morning." Caleb says to the corpse. He goes back to the wall and carefully climbs up a ladder. Checking his dynamite, he discovers that it's all wet. He throws it out and picks the Tommyguns back up. Caleb then realizes that things have gotten eerily quiet. He looks around in the dark. Nothing moving. Nothing, living that is. Between the explosions, panic, ice cold water and sinking boat; everyone on the ship was either dead, or dying. "I suppose this'll make it easier to find the Cabal now." Caleb says to himself.
  12. "It's been too long. The ship will be completely submerged in 20 minutes. Williams has failed. We must leave the ship now. It will soon be too late." Rigs waves more men onto the large wooden ships and follows them. "Yessir." Smith replies, following him onto the ship. "PUSH OFF!" a voice rings through the large room. A huge door opens to reveal the endless sea, and many robes figures push the ships into the water. They hold onto ropes and climb onto their ships, which float seamlessly into the ocean. The figure of Rigs can be seen at the edge of one of the ships, holding the jewel of Chronos in his hand. He calls out: "DESCO PRETAANLUXIS!" He lowers it to below his other hand, cuts his finger with a ceremonial knife and bleeds on the jewel. "ESCO DOMUS, CRUO-STRAGARANA MALAX!" He passes the jewel and the knife on to other robed figures who do the same. Each repeating "CRUO-STRAGARANA MALAX!" The jewel blazes like the fires of hell, and the odd mist rises from points all over the sea near the boat. The jewel begins to glow brighter and brighter as the mist floats up to it and is absorbed into it. "IT IS ALMOST TIME MASTER! YOU WILL LIVE AGAIN!" Rigs yells to the sky.Caleb runs around the deck, pulling dry dynamite off of several corpses. He notices the mist rising from the sea. "Oh, shit. It's started already." Searching for a useable lifeboat, he sees the wooden ships still close to the Titania and ducks back so that they can't see him. "Why are they staying there like that? Don't they know the water will suck them towards the sinking ship?" Caleb thinks to himself. He looks over the ships to see if there's some way he can get on. He then notices Rigs holding the jewel, shining like a star, the mist flowing into it making it even brighter. Caleb sets one of his Tommyguns down and holds the other one with both hands. Looking straight through the sight, he carefully aims at the bright red target in Rigs' hand. He finally gets a bead on it, and BAM! He fires 7 rounds, accidentally tilting the gun as he does so. He hits the target regardless, and Rigs drops the jewel overboard, his hand bleeding immensely. "WHERE IS HE?! FIND HIM AND KILL HIM NOW!" Caleb picks up the other Tommygun and runs down the deck, narrowly avoiding gunfire as he rounds a corner. He lights a dry stick of dynamite and tosses it at one of the ships. He hears an explosion but no one screams. "Shit, missed." He lights another, rounds the corner and throws it straight at the ship closer to him. The explosion sends cultists flying off of the wooden ship and into the water. He looks to the other ship and sees the jewel glowing. It fell into one of the life rafts hanging off of the side. He then sees that there are ropes hanging off of the side of the closer ship. He quickly decides to do something very, very stupid. Backing up to get more distance, Caleb runs as fast as he can and slides the Tommyguns into his belt just as he leaps over the railing, reaching out for the rope ahead. He feels it in his hand as he bashes against the side of the ship then grabs it with his other hand. His hands burn as they slide down the rope. He puts his feet against the ship and tries to anchor himself to it. He stops sliding down just before the end of the rope. Swinging from side to side to avoid a hail of bullets coming from above, he climbs slowly, getting hit in the arm a few times. He pulls out one of his Tommyguns and returns fire. 2 of the cultists fall off the edge screaming. Caleb quickly begins to climb up further with one hand, pointing the Tommygun up at the edge and waiting for any unsuspecting moron to poke his head over the side. Once he reaches the top, he quickly lowers himself back down, narrowly avoiding a hail of gunfire. He quickly lights another stick up and throws it over the side at them. A loud explosion and screams of agony give him the hint that he got his target. He quickly climbs up and over the top, coming face to face with a whole lot of cultists. He pulls out the second Tommygun and opens fire on the whole lot. Most of them fall, while the quicker and tougher remain. One of the Tommyguns runs out of ammo and Caleb rolls to the side, near a door. He tosses the empty gun aside and opens the door. He somersaults into the door and takes cover in the darkness. More cultists poke their heads in the door, only finding a bullet in between their eyes. Caleb flicks his lighter open, the orange glow dimly illuminating the wall and boxes near him. He sees another door leading back and quietly opens it. He closes the lighter and wanders in. Closing the door just as quietly as he opened it, he then flicks the lighter open again and looks around. More crates and boxes. Some barrels in the corner too. He takes a closer look at the barrels: TNT. "Lucky me" he says to himself. He pulls out the flaregun and backs away from the barrels. He fires a flare then runs back out the door, blasting anything that moves with the Tommygun in his other hand. He runs to the edge of the ship where he barely stops himself from falling when the ship explodes into flames, sending cultists flying around screaming in agony as the burn alive. Caleb dives into the ice cold water to avoid the flames, which proves almost as dangerous as staying aboard. He can barely move his frozen muscles as he grabs onto the closest solid object and pulls himself up as well as he possibly can. He soon realizes that he just jumped into a lifeboat full of cultists and pulls out his Tommygun, unloading it into the 4 cultists. Pulling the drum out of the pouch in the back of his trenchcoat, he re-loads the Tommygun and tosses the wet dynamite away. Just then, the boat hits something. Caleb looks behind himself to see the other wooden ship, The one with Rigs on it. "All right…""GET THAT BOAT UP! WE MUST GET THE JEWEL BEFORE THE BETRAYER DOES!" The cultists on the ship scramble around to find the boat with the jewel in it, but for some reason they keep on falling off. "DAMNIT WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? GET THE DAMN JEWEL! ARE YOU ALL IMBECILES?" Caleb sits in his boat near the jewel, holding a voodoo doll. Every time he sees a cultist go after the jewel, he manipulates doll and the cultist goes flying into the icy depths. Caleb then notices a window in the side of the ship. He paddles near it and busts it open. Climbing in, he puts the doll away and pulls out the Tommygun. He opens the door a little and peeks out. The cultists are still going after the jewel, which is suicidal. He sees one passing by close and pulls him into the darkness. Caleb steals the man's knife and slits his throat with it. Taking a closer look out the door, he sees where Rigs is standing. He also recognizes Captain Smith. "He's gone sir." "Damnit. SEARCH THE SHIP! THE BETRAYER IS ON BOARD SOMEWHERE!" Rigs yells. Caleb curses silently. "How am I gonna do this?" he quietly asks himself. He then remembers his twin double barrels. "There's only one way I can do this."
  13. The cultists finally get the jewel they were after. Cheering a bit, they climb back onto the boat to see a dark figure standing in front of them. Before they can re-act, Caleb chops them all down with his Tommygun. He then quickly turns around and pumps the cultists behind him full of lead. More come at him from the side. He rolls forward and fires in their direction. One of them falls but the rest continue to fire at him. Caleb ducks his head down just as a bullet goes through his hat. Pissed, he rolls to the side and blows hole through their heads. There are a few more cultists in the crow's nests above him, and they open fire at him too. Some of the bullets hit him, which only fuels his rage. He returns fire, but misses them all. Rolling over to some of the dead bodies, he pulls a stick of dynamite off of one and lights it up. Meanwhile, one of the cultists slowly crawls his way to the front of the ship, where Rigs stands waiting. The cultist can't go much further, and dies a few feet from Rigs, the jewel in his hand. Rigs takes the jewel from the corpse and begins to chant quietly. His eyes begin to glow an eerie red, the exact same shade as the jewel. "MUAAAA HAHAHAHA HAAAAAAA! I NOW HAVE THE POWER!" Rigs screams. Caleb blows the cultists out of the crow's nest, then starts blasting the others on the deck one by one, until finally he's down to one group of 4 left. Blasting away with the Tommygun, Caleb gives one a few holes in his neck and head then turns the Tommygun on the last 3. A click, click is the only noise that comes out of the gun this time. "Aww, shit." Caleb throws the Tommygun at them in a futile attempt to knock them out and dives into another dark storage room. Pulling out the shotguns, he pokes his head out for a split second and manages to get it back in just before he gets some lead in between his eyes. He turns around and faces the wall, blasting out of both barrels so the slugs go through the wall. He hears an agonized scream and a body falling to the ground. The last 2 begin to shoot through the wall just as Caleb just did, but Caleb is no where near the spot they pick. Caleb snaps open the barrels and reloads the shotguns, watching the door carefully. He finally finishes reloading and points one of the guns at the door, despite the fact that no one is there. He approaches the door carefully and picks up a large barrel. Rolling it out the door, he shoots it with one barrel and it explodes, sending flames and shrapnel all over the place. Caleb hears screams and bodies falling to the ground as he takes cover from the debris. He looks out the door and sees one more Tommygun pointed at his head. He lifts his other shotgun quickly and unloads both barrels into the man's chest. He is knocked back about 10 feet or so and lies still in an expanding pool of his own blood. Caleb stands over his victim's bodies triumphantly. Reloading his weapon, he notices a subtle beeping noise. "What the hell…" Caleb snaps the barrel shut and ducks to the side quickly, narrowly avoiding an explosion. "God damn remote bombs! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" "Right here, betrayer" a voice says from behind him. Caleb turns around to see Captain Smith, holding a remote. "Now, we see just how strong you _really_ are, Betrayer." Smith presses the button on the remote and Caleb jumps away from another explosion, dropping his shotguns. Almost every time Caleb takes a step there's an explosion near him. He finally finds his way to another door on the ship and ducks in just as an explosion knocks a crow's nest tower over where, had he been a split second slower, it would have crushed Caleb like a bug. He feels around on the floor for something useful. He finds a cylinder in the darkness. Could it be? Is he that lucky? Caleb hears a thump next to him. He grasps the cylinder and jumps out the window just as an explosion rips the small structure apart. Caleb pulls out his lighter and flicks it open, spraying the can at it. Flames shoot out of the can and burn Smith's face. He screams and falls to the ground. "You fool. You're a lot weaker then that other guy, he actually stood a chance!" He lights the plastic piece of the can and drops it on top of Smith, but not before grabbing the remote and some bombs. As Caleb walks away, he hears an explosion and loud shrieks of agony. He picks up his shotguns and makes his way to the front of the ship. Stepping over charred bodies and pools of blood (all flowing to the center of the ship creating a lake) he reaches the front of the ship and stops. He hears Rigs' low chanting, just as he finishes his dark ritual. "Oh, shit" is all Caleb can utter before a larger shaft of blue light blasts from the jewel and crates a portal. "I SUMMON THE POWER OF THE GRAND MONSTER OF THE DEVOUERER OF SOULS! DESTROY THIS TRAITOR AND BRING OUR MASTER BACK TO THIS EARTH!" A portal appears in front of Caleb, sucking him into a world of darkness and pain. 
  14. Caleb lands on his back, still holding his shotguns. The searing heat of the ground forces him to jump back up to his feet quickly. He looks at his surroundings: mountainous piles of skeletons and burning corpses engulfed in flames rising higher then anything Caleb has seen ever before, turning the sky black as soot. The screams and cries of billions of tortured souls create the ambience of this terrifying scene of carnage and horror. "Oh, shit." Caleb searches around himself more. He seems to be in what looks like half of a coliseum. The half still standing is cracked and broken, looking more like a broken egg then a building. The mountains keep the gigantic flames from coming into the arena, if they weren't there the flames would engulf Caleb and destroy him quickly. The stench of death, decay, burning flesh, and many others engulf his nostrils. He breathes out of his mouth to lessen the smell going into his nose, but even then it is almost unbearable. He hears a skittering noise coming from behind him. He turns around to see several spiders crawling towards him. "Damn spiders." Caleb blasts them all to smithereens using one shotgun barrel on each of them. He hears something galloping towards him from behind. He turns to see a large fire-breathing mastiff running right at him. He quickly reloads the shotguns and launches the contents of both barrels into the beast. It stops for a split second, then starts at him again. Caleb then reloads one of the guns and fires both barrels again, slaying the creature. Reloading again, he hears another sound coming from behind him. One that he has never heard before. Like a "KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK" coming straight at him. His jaw drops as he slowly turns around to see a massive pair of legs, one is totally intact with brown flesh and a hoof, the other seems to have been damaged somehow, the hoof had been replaced by a metal foot, behind it some stringy muscle shows through. "Hmmm, a weak spot maybe?" he thinks to himself. He slowly moves his vision upward, looking at this massive beast's hand, taking note of some kind of giant metal weapon in its hand. No, forget that. The weapon IS its hand. Caleb feels an unfamiliar feeling wash over his entire body. Is it… no, can't be. But what else can it be? Is Caleb, for the first time in many, many years, feeling FEAR? Yes, just a little bit. But not of death, Caleb is afraid of pain. Those huge guns gotta hurt. More physical hurt then anyone could possibly survive, except of course Caleb. He gulps down a lump in his throat and looks up at its face. A huge head, twisted horns jutting out of either side. The details on its face are quite unclear, all Caleb can really make out are a pair of holes near the center of its head. Nostrils maybe? Perhaps those are its eyes? Caleb hasn't any time to think about it, for the beast then swings its mighty hand at him, forcing him to jump back. It misses, but the wind generated by the hand throws Caleb back like a fly. He tightens his grip on his weapons and gets back on his feet. Aiming at the creature's leg, Caleb unloads both barrels of his shotguns at the exposed muscle behind the metal foot. The creature rears its head and screams a deep, resounding scream, echoing off of the mountains of skeletons and corpses surrounding the arena. It lowers its head again and looks straight at Caleb, an angry look in its face. Caleb starts to back away, only to see the huge metal weapon pointing directly at him. Not one to be too curious, Caleb turns and runs in the opposite direction as fast as he can, and a huge explosion sends him flying across the arena and into a mountain of bones. The flames lick Caleb's trenchcoat and he rolls across the ground, putting out the flames. Hiding behind a smaller pile of bodies, he pulls out the remotes he took from Smith and sets them all down. The loud "KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK" getting closer and closer, he sets all the bombs on and waits. A shadow comes over him, and he moves away from the pile quickly, just as that massive metal foot comes down on the spot he was sitting at. He presses the button and KA-BOOM! The creature's foot is blown clear off. Lying on the ground helpless, the creature screams and yells, forcing Caleb to cover his ears. Once the noise subsides, Caleb walks up to the beast. The shining metal weapon pointing right on his face, Caleb runs out of the way again and barely avoids getting shoved around by the explosion. He then picks up his shotguns from where he dropped them and quietly sneaks up to the monster. It turns its head at him just as he points the guns at it. A defeated look overcomes its face as Caleb blasts its head open with the shotguns. Blood pours all over from the gaping wound. "That must've been the weak spot." Caleb says to it tauntingly. He then sees another portal open in front of him and he steps into it. He then finds himself standing in front of Rigs once again. "I've defeated your 'Grand monster'. Guess who's next?" Rigs firmly stands his ground. "You can never defeat me. I now have the power to summon The Dreaming God back to Earth, and he will destroy you." "I've beaten him before. What makes you think I can't do it again?" Rigs creates another portal and some kind of Brain walks out on spindly robotic spider legs. Caleb quickly takes out the voodoo doll and rips the head off. The glass case surrounding the brain shatters and parts of the gray matter rip away from the rest in a mess of blood and wires and the portal sucks it back in before closing. Rigs gasps at this, and Caleb takes that split second of hesitation to throw the last remote bomb to the man's feet. "Goodnight." Caleb clicks the button and the explosion sends him flying over the side of the ship. Much of his flesh and several vital organs land at Caleb's feet though. Caleb kicks them away and picks the jewel from Rigs' hand, which is still on the deck. Looking deep into it, he sees the fires of hell itself, not that it's anything new to him at this point. He throws it high into the air, and blasts it out of the sky with his shotgun. The glow immediately leaves the jewel and the mist-like essence flows out of it and back into the bodies it came from, then falls into the icy ocean, never to be found again. Caleb looks at the ship behind him. It's blown to bits after Smith's idiotic remote attack. Caleb grabs one of the boats still hanging off of the side of the ship and paddles away from the sinking wreckage of 3 ships, all side by side. Looking back at them, he thinks: "Finally, now the Cabal is finished for good. Now I can take a nap." He tilts his hat over his face, and lays back to get some much-needed rest.   
  
  
Author's NotesIf you've played the game _Blood_ you'll notice that I mentioned nobody knowing how Caleb was resurrected. Well, Caleb knows and so does the evil deity Tchernobog, but they are the only ones who know. Even if they were told, members of the cult would probably dismiss it and stay faithful to their cause.


End file.
